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What Do You Think of the COLEMAK Keyboard? 148

Posted by Cliff from the where-are-my-parens? dept.
dafuchs asks: "Colemak, a new keyboard layout claims to be better then QWERTY and Dvorak. While i'm not certain if I should switch, it looks neat. It is better for hacking then Dvorak, and best of all, the 'l' is not in the right top corner. What do you think? Is it worth a try?"
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What Do You Think of the COLEMAK Keyboard? More

What Do You Think of the COLEMAK Keyboard?

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  • Same Old Problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keithmo ( 453716 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @06:00PM (#14287501) Homepage

    I have the same problem with this layout as I have with every other alternative keyboard layout (including Dvorak): I want to be able to sit down at any computer, anywhere, and touch type. If I commit the COLMAK layout to memory, I'll have big problems the next time I go to a friend's house, an internet cafe, whatever.

    Not worth the trouble.

    • Re:Same Old Problem (Score:3, Informative)

      by Canthros ( 5769 )
      Actually, it's not so bad. I switch back and forth from QWERTY to Dvorak on a regular basis. Like, whenever I come home from the office.

      • Re:Same Old Problem (Score:3, Interesting)

        by WebCrapper ( 667046 )
        This whole conversation shows the need for a new product. I don't have the background to do it, but I'll throw it out there in case anyone wants to run with it...

        Just like the keyloggers that you can install on "any keyboard" why not make a very simple device that remaps the keyboard? Be it USB or PS2, just a simple in-line device. All it would need to do is capture the keys in the way you're typing in and translate them into the "normal" QWERTY layout.

        Simple enough, walk around with a small device the siz
        • I worked at a place where there were teenage workers and at a time before _everyone_ had a cell phone. We had the Merlin phone system and I had implemented a dial code if you wanted to dial out.
          Well, if I changed the code in the morning, by that night the teens had the new code so in addition to the code, I had remapped the keys so that 1 was 4, 2 was 5 and so forth. There were many combinations I used like 1=7, 2=8, or 1=3, 4=6.
          After changing the pattern for a while, some of the teens could dial by tone
          • What did all of the normal people who actually had to use the phones do? Did they have to sift through constantly changing codes and look at a little guide sheet every time they tried to use the phone? What is the point of having the phone if it barely works...just unplug it.

            Too complex and unweildy of a solution to a problem that many other people have solved just by hiring workers that know how to stay on a task and knowing how to deal with the ones who dont.

            • The phone was in a protected area where 'priveleged' employees went. Daytime and nighttime managers were different and nighttime was too busy to police the phone. Some of the 'priveleged' employees would let their friends in or the nighttime manager would let just about anybody in.
              Part of the fun was watching them try to use the phone and get a totally diferent number or a non-existent number :-)

    • Re:Same Old Problem (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18, 2005 @08:17PM (#14288203)
      I have the same problem with Spanish as I have with every other foreign language (including French): I want to be able to sit down next to someone and communicate. If I commit Spanish to memory, I'll have big problems the next time I go to a friend's house, an internet cafe, whatever.

      Not worth the trouble.

      • Re:Same Old Problem (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ashtead ( 654610 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @05:20AM (#14289846) Journal
        Actually, the keyboard remapping is not on the same level as using different languages. They are more on the level of having to use the same old alphabet in a new sequence. Imagine a country or province where all signs, newspapers etc. had been printed with a specific transposition of letters, (say, rot13 as an example, but any of the other possible 26!-2 combinations would have been the same) and then having to quickly switch back and forth between them? You can probably do it with some practice, but in the meantime it has slowed you way down, for no reasonable purpose at all.

        I find even the punctuation moving around between Norwegian and US standard keyboards to be bad enough when having to type the simplest of texts (text with only letters, digits, period, comma, and exclamation marks; the rest of the punctuation has moved around). It isn't like I cannot use it, but once I get to a point where there should be a question mark and i get an underscore instead, or a left parentheses and not the right one, I have to slow way down from the "typing while looking at the screen"-mode, where the thoughts, the fingers, the keyboard and associated circuitry run like a smooth-flowing pipeline, about as easy as talking, to "hunt-and-peck" mode, where the flow is more like the stop-and-go traffic of a city street grid.

        This has nothing to do with language, but all to do with the path from brain to machine.

        • I find even the punctuation moving around between Norwegian and US standard keyboards to be bad enough when having to type the simplest of texts (text with only letters, digits, period, comma, and exclamation marks; the rest of the punctuation has moved around). It isn't like I cannot use it, but once I get to a point where there should be a question mark and i get an underscore instead, or a left parentheses and not the right one, I have to slow way down from the "typing while looking at the screen"-mode,
          • My sister was bitten by a møøse once.

            Egentligt er det nemt nok at skifte mellem sprog. It's not very difficult. When I was flydende i Deutch könte Ich auch switch mid sentence. Not easy to do, because the three languages (Danish, English and German) have different sentence structures. But it's entirely possible.
      • That's a terrible analogy. Think more like when you wanted to talk to somebody different, you're still speaking the same language, but the way you use your mouth to make sounds has changed...

      • I Type 90 WPM (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SlippyToad ( 240532 )
        In fact, I type so fast that I have to step away from my keyboard before I submit one-line comments on Slashdot due to the "idiot filter" that some idiot put in (and which I don't appreciate).

        In short, I don't need a better keyboard. Even keyboards that move the backslash from above [ENTER] to beside [SHIFT] drive me insane. It's not that I don't want to commit to a new keyboard layout, it's that I don't need to bother. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the one that is in use now, and no amount of
        • What was it, in order to break an entrenched product the new one has to be 10x as good. If they came out with a key board that would automaticly make everyone that uses it type 10x faster than they did before then there would be a fairly sweping change.

          Until then QWERTY is the way to go.

    • You realize you can switch keyboard layouts right? In Linux, setxkbmap dvorak/en_US/se/de/whatever layout you want. On the Mac, in the international settings. In Windows, well I don't know but I know it's possible.
  • that I'd hurt myself trying to learn a new keyboard layout.

  • I think... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gojira Shipi-Taro ( 465802 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @06:00PM (#14287506) Homepage
    That having somehow learned to touch-type on QWERTY some time in the last 30 years, there's zero chance I'm going to switch to a new variation of a conventional keyboard.

    Alternative input, chorded keyboards and the like might have some value.

    A "different sequence of letters" would do little but slow down my touch-typing for YEARS and interfere with the interface for any games that I choose to play on the PC.

    TFA: "Typing lessons available" ... yea great. Typing lessons didn't get me to touch typing on QWERTY, experience did. I have little time for classes, and I tend to devote those to something that's going to make my paycheck larger.

    • Re:I think... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )
      Think of it this way: Nobody else will use your computer. They'll take one look at the keyboard and decide it isn't worth the effort.

      One of my friends just recently sanded all the letters/punctuation off his keyboard and airbrushed everything black.

      There is 0 (Zero) chance that I will ever really try to use his computer if I'm at his place. It just isn't worth the guesswork to browse a website.
  • As with all keyboard layouts that aren't QWERTY, you're going to have a rough(er) time switching back and forth layouts as you go home, go to work, and family and friends PCs. I'd stick with what is the most common, and although the layout might not be the absolute fastest around, it is the most common.

  • I have two questions (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MuNansen ( 833037 )
    Two questions:

    1 - Why do people keep coming up with new keyboard layouts when there's already only a few hundred million people with QWERTY committed to memory? It's not like they've come up with a new energy supply.

    2 - And why does Slashdot keep posting about them? Have any geeks anywhere (other than the makers of these keyboards) actually sat around thinking of all the things they could have, it'd be a new "improved" keyboard layout? If there's a good reason please let me know.
    • One question:

      Why do people keep posting criticisms of what others do with their own time, especially when it has no bearing on them whatsoever?

      Please enlighten us as to what you spend your time on. And if it isn't coming up with a new energy supply, you'd better have a good explanation ready.

    • Screw the keyboard, I've come up with a better interface for my car.

      Instead of a steering wheel, you turn the car by leaning in your seat left and right, much like in a motorcycle. This is much more intuitive, not only for motorcyclists, but for new drivers that grew upon bicycles - must less of a learning curve.

      Gas and brake are now tied to your forehead -lean forward to accelerate and back to slow down. I thought of tying this to handlebars like on a motorcycle but realized drivers then couldn't drin

  • Go ahead (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gyga ( 873992 )
    Go ahead and try, and please tell us it looks interesting and if only 2 keys move between hands it should be easy to learn. The only problem I see is that the caps lock acts like a backspace, this could cause AOL 12 PRETENDING TO BE 14 YR OLD YELLING SYNDROM. It keeps the short cuts for cut/copy/paste in the same spot, this is very good.

    Without actually using it I say it sounds neat and I might try it also, if someone makes a keyboard for it, right now it seems that you have to relabel/not look at, your
  • and best of all, the 'L' is not in the right top corner.

    But now the 'K' is in the top right corner, which is much worse!

  • I vote yes.. for me (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Carpe PM ( 754778 )
    Disclaimer: I am a typing bonehead. I do not touch-type. QWERTY has never been 'right' in my mind.

    Any improvement in efficiency is ultimately worth it.

    Also, 'We've always done it this way' is a terrible excuse for anything.

    • How about "If it's not broke don't fix it?" That seems like a good excuse to not bother. The pain in the ass that this would be for me would not be worth the small amount of (if any) advantage.
    • " 'We've always done it this way' is a terrible excuse for anything. "

      Well, perhaps we could make an exception for sex. :-)

  • What's the point? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Threni ( 635302 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @06:28PM (#14287662)
    Are we still looking for a keyboard which is somehow quicker to type on than Qwerty? Why? What characteristics are we after, exactly? How would you measure how much better it is? Keep finding 1000 people to start from scratch with it, time them learning it, then time them using it at a reasonable level of competence? Where are you going to find people who haven't been "tainted" with Qwerty?

    Give up, or at least, stop posting about it to Slashdot. Please.
    • Where are you going to find people who haven't been "tainted" with Qwerty?

      Put 'em on the 100 dollar laptop?
      • > Put 'em on the 100 dollar laptop?

        Isn't that a little cruel? Talk about kicking a man when he's down...
      • Once you introduce the concept of going "non-traditional" on the $100 laptop keyboard you open up the possibility of going non-English and the next thing you know those poor little kids in Africa are going to be training themselves for domination by their Chinese or Spanish speaking overlords instead of their English speaking overlords. Or maybe even preparing themselves to be their own overlords, speaking their own native tongue.
        • There are a lot of non-English qwerty layouts, but I still haven't seen any non-English Dvorak or Coleman layouts. I'm not about to switch until there's some reasonable standard for those.
  • Upon looking at the layout, one striking thing astonished me. The Ctrl-Z,X,C,V are the same for Qwerty and Colmak. Muscle memory shortcuts were the one thing that kept me back from using Dvorak, the inital creators of these shortcuts put them in the lower-left hand corner of the keyboard for a reason; they are incredibly easy to access. With Dvorak I found it cumbersome to stretch in weird places. I think that I'll feel truly at home with this layout
  • I just looked at the picture of the layout and typed "What are you doing" in COLMAK, and it's true, most of the work is done on the main line. I don't think I'll switch, QWERTY is just too convenient for me.

  • Not really multilingual (Score:5, Insightful)

    by W2k ( 540424 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @06:42PM (#14287732) Journal
    Their website cites "multilingual" as a major feature of this layout. Reading a bit more about this however, they've just made up lots of key combos for various "multilingual" characters. So? Anyone can pull a bunch of key combos out of their $ORIFICE and list them on a web page, or even write a custom keyboard map. And speaking as someone who does a lot of typing in my native language, I'd rather have my Ås, Äs and Ös as first-class letters, thankyouverymuch. Putting either under a (non-initiutive) key combo like [AltGr][f] is, principally, the same to me as putting "Q" under [AltGr][O]...

    Btw, according to TFA, it's "Colemak" not "COLMAK". The website is even Colemak.com [colemak.com] ffs...

    I'll stick to QWERTY for the time being.
    • Forgot to add: They also claim that their layout requires "no special hardware". This too is highly questionable, as most people would value having a keyboard that actually produces keypresses in accordance with what's printed on the keys. This is especially valuable when trying to learn a new keyboard layout, as (almost) anyone adopting Colemak would have to do.

      However, since there are (at this time) no known vendors of Colemak-layout keyboards, anyone wanting to use such a keyboard with the proper key

      • Re:Not really multilingual (Score:5, Funny)

        by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Sunday December 18, 2005 @07:10PM (#14287880) Journal
        It might be a good way to discourage others from using your system if your keys were not only unlabeled, but they were not even QWERTY.
      • Actually, correctly labeled keys are horrible for learning to touch type with any layout. You're not supposed to be looking at your hands, that's the whole point! When my high school taught people touch typing, they made the students put wash-cloths over their hands, and the next class had to use keyboard-condoms. When I first started learning Dvorak, I found the easiest solution was to have a Dvorak layout visible on the screen.
      • most people would value having a keyboard that actually produces keypresses in accordance with what's printed on the keys

        Then perhaps they can pluck the keys off and rearrange them for free, as well? My keyboards have removable keytops that are all the same size/shape, except for the non alphanumerics like shift, enter, spacebar, etc. Okay, the function keys are half-height, too...
    • Since you use ÅÄÖ i presume you are swedish. Have you tried the svorak [users.one.se] keybord layout?

      Do you know if it's any good?
      • Seems like all layouts have their problems. The Svorak does a similar thing as regular Swedish keyboard and puts all the programming characters in hard to reach places.

        Perhaps the best is to just learn one for english/coding and keep on using Qwerty for Swedish. I imagine that learning two new at the same time is a bad idea.
    • And speaking as someone who does a lot of typing in my native language, I'd rather have my Ås, Äs and Ös as first-class letters, thankyouverymuch.

      I, on the other hand, am glad, that some ppl at the beginning of the computer era in Poland decided to disregard official Polish Norms and create "Polish Programer's Keyboard" -- basically US QWERTY keyboard with all the nine Polish characters[1] accessible via Alt keys on their latin counterparts. Polish "typewriter keyboard" is QWERTZ with some "a

  • I have enough trouble with keyboards already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kymermosst ( 33885 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @06:46PM (#14287745) Journal
    I have a Sun system with a Sun keyboard, and I work with Sun servers at work. I also deal with several PCs at home and work. There are no less than five keyboard variations.

    I have problems switching between the Sun keyboard and the PC keyboard due to the row change of the backspace key. It takes 10-15 minutes before I am confident I won't make mistakes. Depending on which PC keyboard I was using last, a mistake may mean hitting enter or '\' instead of backspace. That can be a fatal error when you are root. At work, I always use a PC keyboard to ssh to the Sun systems, that way I don't make mistakes.

    Then there are keyboards that have ESC where I prefer '`'.

    The worst is that there are no less than three ways to position the '\' key on PC keyboards. Sometimes, the placement affects either the size of the backspace key or the shape of the enter key.

    I prefer the enter key to be a rectangle (none of that backwards-L shaped crap), the backspace key to be at least as big as two normal keys, and the '\' key to be in between them.

    So, you're asking me if I want to change a dozen or more keys around?

    Hell no!

    • One of the great mysteries of the universe: who at Sun though it was a good idea to put the caps lock key below the caps lock key?

      Thank God Sun now supports USB keyboard...

      • Re:I have enough trouble with keyboards already (Score:4, Funny)

        by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @10:38PM (#14288741) Homepage Journal
        One of the great mysteries of the universe: who at Sun though it was a good idea to put the caps lock key below the caps lock key?

        So... Sun keyboards have dual caps lock keys? For twice the caps locking capability?
        • No such luck. There's only one each of CTRL and CAPS LOCK, and they're both on the left Here's an image [hanya-n.org] and here's another [ninkendo.org]. As I said, it's a major mystery why they moved CAPS LOCK to the bottom row (it's only been in the middle since the invention of the typewriter!), but what really drives me crazy is not having the backspace key in the top row.

          Believe it or not, there are folks who love this arrangement, and spend hundreds of bucks so they can use Sun keyboards on their PCs!

          Sun does make a "PC" keybo

          • Its funny you say that as I know a lot of people who like it that way. In fact I do the
            exact same thing on standard pc keyboards (swap caps lock and ctrl). The capslock is hardly ever used while ctrl is used quite a bit (think emacs) so swapping them makes it *much* easier to extensively use the ctrl key instead of stretching the pinky down.

            That said, for linux and sun I think you should like into Xmodmap [xfree86.org] Not only can you software swap the ctrl and
            capslock back to the pc position (or as I do swap pc keyboar
            • The capslock is hardly ever used while ctrl is used quite a bit (think emacs) so swapping them makes it *much* easier to extensively use the ctrl key instead of stretching the pinky down.

              Dude, in the standard PC layout you can easily hit the CTRL key with the palm of your hand and still have all your fingers on the home row, making CTRL-A and other combinations involving the left pinky easy.

              It's _way_ easier to do this than to use the pinky and hit combinations using the "key left of a", especially if you'r

              • Dude, in the standard PC layout you can easily hit the CTRL key with the palm of your hand and still have all your fingers on the home row, making CTRL-A and other combinations involving the left pinky easy.

                Ah, finally someone else who types the way I do! I always bring this up in keyboard discussions, and people tend to just look at me funny. You have good taste indeed. For those who aren't accustomed to the palm/side of the hand control tactic, let me just say that when using this technique, it's o

            • anyway regardless of how you like it there is no need to purchase an external keyboard for unix systems (except for the mac which has some funky hardware capslock which prevents switching :( :( )

              That's only true of Apple's old ADB keyboards. The USB keyboards they've been using since the iMac have regular software caps lock keys. In fact, OS X 11.4 includes a control panel that allows you to arbitrarily reassign control, caps lock, option/alt, and command/open apple. Some of the laptops lingered on w

              • I'm unfamiliar with 11.4, but 10.4 has this feature :)

                I actually use a mac pro keyboard at home on my macs, as well as at work on my sun boxes. It seems to work just fine everywhere. On the cheesy windows box at work, I simply remap the "apple" key to the windows control key, so that the apple+c apple+v apple+t stuff all works properly. I then remap the control key to the "windows" key, so the win+r win+e type stuff works easily.

                The only difficulty I hit with that one is if I am using VNC to go to a mac box
            • Oh yeah, I know about Xmodmap. Used to be the first thing I'd install when I was setting up a Sun workstation. Alas, it doesn't work on the evil Sun Ray terminals [sun.com] Sun now forces all its non-developer employees to use. Notice I said "terminals". Officially it's a "thin client", but it doesn't do anything that fits in the client-server model. It's just a graphics terminal, with all the actual computing taking place on a central host. Yes, Time-Sharing [stanford.edu] is back!
              • Those things are a bit weird. They look like X terminals but they are "not", weirdly it looks like they are at least friends of X terminals as xmodmap works in a manner.

                Take a look at this entry [sun.com]. It looks like xmodmap works on the sunray except for when you switch terminals *if* the terminal has a different keyboard mapping.

                You may need to run xmodmap .xmodmaprc as a startup script for gnome/jds3 as they mention as well.

                I'm curious if this works.

                If you get that working, there should be way of running that
                • Thanks for the link, but by the time I would get around to implementing it, the Goldtouch keyboard I ordered to use at work will have arrived. Not only does it put all the modifier keys Where God Meant Them To Be, it splits apart so you can position your hands naturally. Plus it's the narrowest serious keyboard in production, so you don't have to reach halfway across your desk to use your mouse.

                  Speaking of which, does anybody else except Sun still sell mechanical mice?

      • One of the great mysteries of the universe: who at Sun though it was a good idea to put the caps lock key below the caps lock key?

        What this poster is asking is "why did sun swap the location of the capslock and control keys?".

        NeXT did the same thing on their keyboards and I've seen it on other UNIX systems as well. I think it's because UNIX users tend to use CTRL a lot more than they use CAPS-LOCK. I actually prefer the "Sun" layout as it's easier for me to hit the CTRL key in that location, and I rarely ac

        • What this poster is asking is "why did sun swap the location of the capslock and control keys?".

          I asked what I said I asked. And anyway, Sun did no such thing. Early Unix systems used teletypes and video terminals that emulated teletypes. On such terminals, the Control key is in the middle row on the far left [kekatos.com] — the same place it still is on most Sun keyboards.

          If a modifier key is heavily used, then the natural place for is duplicated and near the bottom. That way you can hold it down with the

    • I have a Sun system with a Sun keyboard

      My condolences. Sun keyboards suck. Oddly, keyboards are one area where Microsoft's offerings are better than Sun's...

  • ... it's spelled Colemak.

    I think the poster is an idiot.

    I think the poster will have no luck with the Colemak keyboard, since he doesn't read very well to start with. How will he ever tell he has mistyped anything? May as well use the ABCDE keyboard and forget learning to touch type.

  • passwd (Score:4, Funny)

    by DavidLeeRoth ( 865433 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @09:13PM (#14288420)
    I think i will have to change all my passwords from qwerty to colmak.
  • In the FAQ, he says that "It's not possible to use Ctrl-Z/X/C/V shortcuts with the left hand while holding the mouse with the right hand." This is certainly not the case for me; I do this all the time, frequently without looking. With my left hand, I hit Ctrl with my pinky and hold it, while with my index finger I hit X, C, or V as needed. I've been doing this since the Windows 3.1 days.
  • the colmak layout:

    [12] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
    [13] Q F W P G J L U Y K [ ] \
    [10] A S R T D H N E I O
    [10] Z X C V B ; M , . /

    is ALMOST congruent with my UK keyboard layout, BUT having a different number of keys on each row, being:
    (ignoring special keys like backspace, enter, tab, shift etc)

    [13] ` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
    [12] Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ]
    [12] A S D F G H J K L ; ' #
    [11] \ Z X C V B N M , . /

    A test re-mapping comes to

    [13] ` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
    [12] Q F W P G J L U Y K [ ]

  • My related Dvorak story (Score:3, Informative)

    by jbreidbord ( 898798 ) on Monday December 19, 2005 @05:23AM (#14289856)
    I'm 21-years-old and typed in QWERTY for seven years starting at age 12, ultimately reaching 130+ words per minute. Rather than study for a test at uni two years ago, I decided to start learning DVORAK. For the rest of the semester lab reports were hard to write and after a week, I was a steady 40 wpm on Dvorak but my QWERTY speed dropped to about 50 wpm--after such a loss, there was no turning back! After four months exclusively on Dvorak I was at 90 wpm and by the half-year mark I was at 120 wpm. As for people who compare switching back-and-forth between keylayouts to bilingualism, they either (a) do not speak from experience or (b) do not type fast on either layout. Occasionally switching back to QWERTY is a REAL PAIN. The only words I can type fast on QWERTY include the URL to my uni's webmail page, my first and last name (email login), and email password. I've found that I only reach tolerable QWERTY speeds if I'm going back to QWERTY on a daily basis. I also think it helps to use the EXACT SAME KEYBOARD IN THE EXACT SAME LOCATION to really rev up QWERTY rates quickly. Of course, the latter statement sounds like psychobabble, but my muscle memory seems to benefit from these constants. If you haven't garnered these from DVORAK fan sites, here are some little tidbits: * 'a' and 'm' are the only keys that are not moved between QWERTY and ANSI Dvorak (more on ANSI later...) * the Dvorak home row includes aoeu ih htns - (spaces insert for readibilty) * as an OS X user, I find Dvorak much more amenable to common keyboard shortucts. Quit is cmd+Q and Close Window is cmd+w, which makes for easy muscle-memorisation on a Powerbook keyboard with the keys physically rearranged for Dvorak (http://www.geocities.com/rjpoling/MacOS/dvorak/dv [geocities.com] orak_powerbook.jpg [geocities.com]) As for ANSI mentioned above, here's the real doozey: August Dvorak initially proposed an alternate number-row layout in his book Typewriting Behavior (1936, I think?). Rather than 12345 67890, Dvorak liked 75319 02468 (again, spaces inserted for readability). In theory, I don't know how much this helps. In practice, it's kinda useful these days since the '@' character is easily accessed with the index finger. This alternate number layout was NOT included in the standard ANSI Dvorak layout, but keymap files may be easily modified by true fanatics. On OS X, I highly recommend Ukelele (http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_softwar [sil.org] e.asp?id=94 [sil.org]). I'm two-weeks into learning the alternate layout and am finally getting good at it. In sum, the Dvorak layout markedly reduces finger movement for standard English text (http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jmaxwell/dvorak/comparePag [vt.edu] e.html [vt.edu]); it seems to not be so helpful to developers. If you type fast on QWERTY now, you'll lose a lot of it after learning Dvorak. You may be able to get good enough at QWERTY but it won't be soon after learning Dvorak and it won't be fast and your boss will look at you funny when you're hunting and pecking. Hope this helps. Jon
  • I wish my brain were fast enough that my keyboard typing speed was the bottleneck for anything other than mindless dictation... but it isn't... so I'll stick with good ol' QWERTY.

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